


This Isn't Our First Time Around

by theweddingofthefoxes



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alcohol, Dirty Talk, Modern AU, Multi, Nightmares, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Threesome, references to canonverse death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-02 06:37:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14538813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweddingofthefoxes/pseuds/theweddingofthefoxes
Summary: Bodhi finds something new and fun in Jyn and Cassian, and it doesn't take long for him to be accepted into their open relationship. The three of them get along so well that it almost feels like they've met before...





	This Isn't Our First Time Around

**Author's Note:**

> _Past lives couldn't ever hold me down_   
>  _Lost love is sweeter when it's finally found_   
>  _I've got the strangest feeling_   
>  _This isn't our first time around_   
>  _Past lives couldn't ever come between us_   
>  _Sometimes the dreamers finally wake up_   
>  _Don't wake me, I'm not dreaming_   
>  _Don't wake me, I'm not dreaming_
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> -BØRNS , "Past Lives"

There is sangria, and popcorn, and those Girl Scout cookies that aren’t really Girl Scout cookies but the store-brand kind that are pretty much the same once you’re a few drinks in. There is the softness of the rug beneath Bodhi, a fake fur one from a thrift store, and a Grimes song playing on the TV -- Jyn’s got some kind of ethereal futurey playlist going as they talk and drink. The three of them have been sitting together all evening: Jyn and Cassian on the sofa, and Bodhi on the floor, despite repeated pleas for him to sit somewhere more comfortable. But this is all so comfortable, everything in its place, and it feels just right when Jyn offers to read Bodhi’s palm. “I’ll tell you about your past lives,” she says, straightening. She’s been curled up with her feet in Cassian’s lap, but now she’s sitting erect and proper, as if she has begun an exam.

“Past lives, okay,” Bodhi says, setting his drink down so it’s not within her kicking distance. He turns to face the couch, offering his right hand up to her.

“I don’t think that’s what palm readings do,” Cassian interjects.

“Sure they do,” Jyn says.

“Sure they do,” Bodhi echoes.

“I thought it was like, your love life and how long you live and stuff.”

“On your _regular_ hand,” Jyn insists. “On your other hand, the one you don’t use, that’s your past life.”

“Is it, now?” Cassian asks, smirking.

Bodhi obligingly switches hands. She holds his fingers together in a flat little bundle, the way you’d pull a carrot out of the ground by the shoots, and uses the pointer finger of her other hand to trace meandering lines across his palm. It tickles. She makes humming sounds of highly exaggerated interest, _hMMMMM_.

“You died young in your last life, Mr. Rook,” she says at last.

“Jesus,” Cassian says. “Don’t say things like that.”

“It’s that little line that drops off into nowhere, see?” 

Bodhi shifts around so he can see what she means. Yes, there is a short crooked line midway through his palm, much shorter than the others. Or so it seems, in this light, and at this level of tipsiness. “I’ve got the same kind,” Jyn goes on. “I died young as well. Tragic, isn’t it?”

“I don’t like all this talk about dying,” Cassian says, frowning, reaching behind him for the box of what are only not Thin Mints on a technicality. “I’d say look at his other hand but you’re going to make up some bullshit about him falling out a window or something.”

“Bodhi, give me your other hand.”

He is intrigued, more than he would like to say; he has already begun to romanticize his own previous, early demise. He wonders how it happened, who he was. What he did then, and if it meant anything. Bodhi has been nobody and has done nothing, at least in this lifetime -- who knows what the past had been like.

But he gives Jyn his right hand again, and again she examines it thoroughly. “Yeah, this one. This one’s good.”

“Good in what way?” Bodhi asks.

“She means you’re not going to get murdered, probably,” Cassian says through a mouthful of cookie. 

She scoffs. “I mean, yes.” Bodhi’s resting on her knee, now, looking up in contentment as she talks. “Long life, and fate… fate’s doing all kinds of things, here. That’s a good sign, I think.”

“You’re making all of this up, aren’t you?” Cassian asks. “I’ve never seen you look at this kind of thing.”

“My arm’s getting tired,” Bodhi adds. She lets go of it, pats his head affectionately. 

“All good things.”

“Did the other one say how I died?”

“If you talk about dying one more time...” Casian warns, stretching out on the couch and placing his head is in Jyn’s lap so he can complain to her more directly. “I’ll kill you both myself. Bet you didn’t see _that_ coming on your little life lines.”

“Leave it to you to surprise me,” Jyn tells him, laughing, knowing this is really no threat at all. 

“Well, did it?” Bodhi presses her, not ready to let the pretense go, and Cassian groans, adjusting how he’s laying so that he and Bodhi are facing each other, noses nearly touching. 

“Enough, Bodhi,” he says, before closing the gap between them. But there’s nothing forceful or mean about the way he says it, or about the way he presses his mouth to Bodhi’s. It’s not even really exasperated. It’s soft and placating, a gentle trick to shut Bodhi up for a while, and it works. For a fleeting moment, Bodhi considers being a pest, pulling away and trying to get an answer out of Jyn – a made-up one, sure, one woven out of whole cloth and rich red sangria – but Cassian’s kiss is far better than any satisfaction he’d get out of Jyn’s stories. Jyn’s hand is in his hair again, her signal of approval. 

There’s a few more seconds where they kiss even more insistently, and then they part, slowly, at the same time, fully on the same wavelength. 

“Jyn,” Bodhi says. “What kind of mood are you in?”

“The fact you’re asking tells me what kind of mood _you’re_ in, Bo.”

“Mmm.”

“Answer his question,” Cassian teases. 

“In a mood to do more than watch,” Jyn shoots back, pleased with herself, even more pleased when she’s rewarded with Cassian craning his neck up to land a sloppy kiss on her chin, his aim clearly off but his intent loud and clear. “Are we moving, or…? Well, I guess I’m not going anywhere with you two on top of me.”

Bodhi closes his eyes, letting Jyn twirl a lock of his hair around her finger. There is a new song playing, something made of electronic yips and bleeps, set against a frantic beat, yet he feels utterly calm and warm and easygoing. Ready for anything. “Can we go to your room?” he asks her, and she kisses him yes, shaking the two of them off as nicely as she can so she can rise, her boys at her heels.

* * *

The townhouse is a three-bedroom, and Bodhi has been one of its residents for about four and a half months now. He’s known Jyn for awhile-- they went to college together, until Jyn dropped out, and he had worked for her dad for a couple of years. But they hadn’t gotten particularly close until the beginning of the year he moved in, when they started meeting at the same Starbucks; Bodhi doing homework and Jyn working on some kind of freelance project that he understood nothing about, despite the fact she talked about it every single time they met. To those she didn’t know well, Jyn was quiet and stoic, hard to reach; to those she decided that she liked, she was snarky-sweet, talkative, full of not-quite-mean jokes. She was a bright light that Bodhi wanted to sit near, taking in all of her warmth. 

Sometimes she’d bring Cassian instead of her laptop, and they’d all have a good time chatting, Bodhi accepting he wasn’t going to get any work done because he’d be having too much fun listening to their stories, laughing at their jokes, listening to them fret over how they wanted to move into a new place but needed a roommate. The first time she’d brought Cassian along, he’d nearly gone into cardiac arrest trying to decide whether to be jealous of this striking stranger or of Jyn instead. Was that her man -- was that the guy she was fucking -- was he single, could he get his number? 

Sometimes Jyn would bring another guy instead, or another girl, but never any person other than Cassian more than once. 

“Is Cassian your boyfriend?” Bodhi finally asked one day after they’d been doing this for a while, when he felt confident that he wouldn’t offend her by accident. Jyn made a face that seemed to say, _Well..._.

“Neither of us are really the monogamy type, you know? We know that about ourselves, and each other.” Jyn took a sip of her Emperor’s Clouds and Mist, then continued, still in a normal tone, not really caring that there were other people around. “Partners in crime, I’d go as far to say. We understand each other very well.”

“And you live together.”

“Makes things convenient. Especially when we share.”

“Share…?”

“Oh, yes. It’s more fun that way.”

Bodhi shifted in his seat, wondering if Jyn knew how aroused he’d suddenly become at the word _share_. She was so pretty, with her big eyes and cat’s mouth, and so was Cassian, all brooding glances until he suddenly lit up with a smile at something one of them had said -- Jyn was especially good at getting him to crack up with some mocking, witty comment she’d made -- both sides of his spectrum were so good-looking. 

Had Jyn seen the way Bodhi watched them both? He never wanted to be obvious, but it seemed as though his indecision about who to be jealous of was like a sign around his neck. _I COULD SLEEP WITH EITHER OF YOU IF ONLY YOU WOULD LET ME._ Heavy as an albatross. 

“How do you find people to share?” Casual. Or maybe not.

“God, hm. Online, a lot. It’s really easy that way. We’re practiced at scouring. But sometimes people just bring it up and it just feels right.”

He didn’t know how to bring it up himself, though, so he didn’t. The topic naturally changed. Then Cassian came to pick her up, and she was gone, and nothing more was said about it until they were all at Starbucks again, Jyn-Bodhi-Cassian. Bodhi was going to just catch the 93 bus back home, but it was running late, and Jyn didn’t want to just leave him, especially since it was getting dark. 

They sat in Cassian’s Jeep, squished three into the two-seater space, waiting in the Starbucks parking lot. Bodhi sat in the middle, savoring it, pretending not to notice the sly looks that they were exchanging while he chattered, playfully laying his head on both of their shoulders and poking their arms. Doing his best to signal like a bird of paradise, _notice me, please, both of you_. 

“No one’s gonna murder me if I go wait out at the stop, Jynnie…” he teased, like he wasn’t having the time of his life right where he was. 

“I’d just feel better if I could be sure. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

“What could happen to me?”

She just petted him on the head in a way that was not overtly flirtatious but not exactly sisterly, either. “When’s this bus supposed to be here?”

“Ten minutes ago.”

“We can just take you home,” Cassian offered. “You’re already in here.”

“We could take you to our home,” Jyn teased. 

“I’d rather be there than at my place,” said Bodhi. He let his voice sink to pitiful-dramatic levels, having fun with it. “All on my own, my God, it’s depressing…” 

“We can’t let him go home and be depressed,” Jyn said to Cassian, mock-seriously, as if Bodhi were a kitten she wanted to keep. 

“So let’s not.” Cassian put his arm around Bodhi, sending a rush of surprised warmth right up Bodhi’s spine. “It’s not all that fancy at our place, but we have Easy Mac.”

“That’s all I need, you know.”

They gave him more than that, of course. No offer of alcohol was made -- Bodhi suspected they had agreed, by some kind of partner-in-crime telekinesis, that it was imperative that whatever happened that night should happen naturally, without any outside influence -- but they made the macaroni and cheese, and scooped up ice cream, and still sat so nice and close once they migrated from the tiny breakfast nook to the living area. They seemed somehow both suitor and chaperone, working towards his comfort but also testing to see who might be the first to get a kiss or a touch, their flirting becoming more and more obvious. Was it a game, maybe? Bodhi felt bizarrely flattered by the concept, that they might both like him enough to compete for his affection. 

_They know something is going to happen._

_I know something is going to happen._

And nothing ever happened to Bodhi, who had dated around, but had never had much of any real connection with anyone, who had never been pursued, much less by two people at once, two hunters in tandem, hoping to lovingly trap him. It was more fun because he let himself be followed, but God, how much he wanted to be caught. 

The warm night wind poured in through the open window. 

“You’ve got ice cream on your chin,” Cassian had told him, and then that _something_ did happen, easy as that. Cassian’s hand on his chin. Cassian’s mouth on his mouth. So easy. He’d always imagined Cassian tasting -- masculine? Like whiskey or something like that. Not like strawberry ice cream, but that’s what they’d been eating, and the association would never go away after this encounter. 

So easy.

“You win,” Jyn said, once Cassian had pulled away to see the starstruck expression on Bodhi’s face. She couldn’t have sounded less bothered by the fact that she’d lost.

“Maybe Bodhi will offer you a consolation prize,” Cassian said with a nudge and a smile. Offering Bodhi up like a lovely sacrifice, but also making sure Bodhi himself had a say in it. 

“I’m going to have to turn my back on you,” Bodhi warned, trying to joke. His voice shook a bit but nobody seemed to care. “So don’t take it personally.”

“Does that mean I can grab your ass?”

“Don’t _distract_ him,” Jyn chided. She took Bodhi’s shoulders and rattled him gently. “Isn’t it time for you to pay attention to _me_ now?”

“Because you get no attention at all,” Cassian griped. 

“I want Bodhi’s attention.”

Jyn tasted strawberry-sweet too, and her kissing style was different -- a little more aggressive, maybe because she had lost their game, wasn’t soaking in the fact she’d won the way Cassian had been. Her hair was pinned back and didn’t fall into her face the way Cassian’s had, a little bit. She gave a little laugh as they broke the connection.

“You actually listened, Cas.” 

“What?” Bodhi asked.

She held Bodhi’s chin in her hands, murmured in his ear : “You’d have gasped so loud if he’d grabbed you.”

“I’m not going to actually grab anybody who doesn’t tell me it’s okay to grab them.”

“I am,” Bodhi said, grinning at Jyn because he couldn’t move his head back to look at Cassian. “Giving you _explicit_ permission to grab my--oh!” 

Bodhi squirmed out of Jyn’s hold, gasping with laughter, clambering over them both the way a large dog that thinks he’s a puppy might have. Cassian had just gone for it, sending a sudden sparkling blush up Bodhi’s chest and throat, across his cheeks. 

“He didn’t finish his sentence, Christ!” Jyn was cackling. “You didn’t know what he was going to say!”

“Can I take a wager on the outcome, Bodhi?”

“Wager away.”

“I’m going to guess that you were completely fine with this…” Cassian’s hand crept expertly up his thigh, up higher, giving his ass another squeeze -- again, Bodhi gave a squirm, but he wasn’t laughing as much as he was groaning now, and then the groans were being swallowed up as Jyn stole the opportunity for another kiss. 

Two expert hunters, ensnaring willing prey. 

“What are you thinking right now, Bodhi?” Jyn asked when they came up for air, Cassian’s hand now on Bodhi’s waist.

He decided to be bold.

“Are you still looking for another roommate?”

* * *

It isn’t all nightly orgies or anything in the townhouse. They’ve got other things to do. Bodhi still has his classes, and they all work, and they have other friends that they’ve moved into their lives to replace family. Their world is larger than simply three. Sometimes two of them just want to fuck around, sometimes two of them just want to cuddle. Sometimes one of them just needs some space -- wants to just watch _Chopped_ without anyone groping them. They all have separate rooms, decorated to their separate tastes. They all have separate neuroses. 

Bodhi has nightmares more often than most people do, and when he does, he picks a bed and seeks out warmth, a pair of kind arms to wrap around him, and that’s all he wants and that’s all he needs. He has a recurring nightmare about being caught in an explosion, a thick bright mess of fire and light and then suffocating darkness, and it tends to show up once every two weeks. Neither Jyn nor Cassian mind his intrusion when he opens the door, trying to contain his shaking, clambering into bed just murmuring that _it’s happening again_. Cassian will just spoon him from behind, petting him with a steady hand the way he’d stroke a kitten to sleep, and Jyn will take his hands and squeeze, grounding, present, real. Safe. 

In the morning he and Cassian or Jyn go to McDonald’s and get sausage biscuits and go about their day and the world seems a lot less scary than it had at one in the morning. 

Living with roommates has always been presented like it’s going to some kind of nightmare -- Bodhi’s friends have had pretty bad horror stories about stolen dishes and vomit in the hallways and rent coming six months late. But living with others has been remarkable for Bodhi’s mental health. Knowing someone is always around -- someone to blow him, someone to eat dinner with him, someone to cuddle him as he struggles to breathe his way through some dark possession of throat-closing anxiety, someone to just be making friendly noise down the hall so he doesn’t feel so _alone_ , that’s an enormous relief. Even better when it’s someone, two someones, who just seem to get him. It’s like they’re some unique species that have been introduced into the same enclosure, and have formed a seamless pack. Not that they never argue. But it’s not at all rare for them to all want the same thing at the same time.

Tonight, for example, they are all riding that exact same brain wave, meeting up in the bedroom, kind of tipsy, kind of impatient, playing this encounter by ear. Bodhi wants to kiss and nuzzle as much as he wants to fuck, he’s feeling pleasantly tossed in the surf between wanting the rough and the soft. He settles on Jyn’s bed, against the pillows that sit pressed up to the headboard, watching Cassian pull his henley shirt over his head, watching him unbutton his jeans. It’s hardly a minute before Jyn sits herself down in front of him, right in his lap, facing forward. She’s shed all of her clothes except her underthings, which don’t match -- a lacy purple bra paired with some boyshorts that are patterned with little cartoony hamburgers and french fries. The silliness of it somehow only makes him want her more. 

“I know you like watching, Bo,” she says, quiet, but not so quiet Cassian can’t hear her. Bodhi can’t really see her face, just the back of her head, her bun almost in his mouth, but he senses she’s watching Cassian too, who doesn’t seem at all to mind that he’s become the star of the show. 

“I do,” he says, a little breathless, right in her ear.

“Keep me right here,” she directs; she’s often the one to take the lead when the three of them come together like this. He’s busy prying open the little hooks that hold her bra together, but he nods. By the time he’s got it free, Cassian’s finished undressing and is pulling the hamburger boyshorts down Jyn’s legs. Good timing. “Here,” Bodhi says, giving the bra a little pull so she’ll lift her arms and let him toss it over to the side of her bed, onto the pile of dirty laundry she’s been building for the past week or two. Then he’s caressing, tender (she’s not shy about shoving if she thinks he or Cassian is being too enthusiastic with her more sensitive spots), knowing she can feel his erection under her. 

“We make quite a team, don’t we, Boh?” Cassian wants to know, kissing Jyn’s stomach, working his way up her solar plexus until he hits her breasts. He’s indiscriminate, pressing kisses to Jyn’s flesh and to Bodhi’s hands. “You under and me on top, got her right here….”

This is for Jyn’s benefit, of course -- Bodhi and Jyn share a liking for being talked about to the other party as they’re being touched or teased or fucked, maybe he learned it from her. But it’s for Bodhi’s, too. “We do,” Bodhi parrots. “I bet, I bet she’s impatient.”

Jyn presses up snug and close, her naked warmth sending licks of fire up through Bodhi. “Mmhm,” she hums. “You’re two teases.”

“Don’t keep her waiting, Cassian.”

“Sounds like you’re really saying, don’t keep _me_ waiting, Cassian.”

“That as well...”

They’ve done this a few times before, Bodhi or Cassian and Jyn fucking with the other one under her. Despite Cassian’s joke that this position is called Handmaid’s Tale-style (“It’s not,” Jyn always insists, “That’d be two women!”), it’s so awfully intimate. 

Bodhi’s not really being penetrated, but having Jyn there in his lap, and Cassian so close, their sounds and shivers and tenseness _on_ him, their arousal downright contagious, Jyn saying both of their names as she grabs for Bodhi’s hands, links their fingers together-- it is such a strange experience to have by proxy, and he loves it. She yelps with pleasure when Bodhi leans down, making his way around Cassian’s arms, and kisses one of her breasts. Then he leans in further, traces the nipple with his tongue. “Fuck!” she yowls, the word landing somewhere between hysteria and satisfaction. 

Her gaze slides up, so she can watch Bodhi’s face. “God, you guys --”

Cassian takes this as an invitation to taunt her a little more. He hauls himself forward a little bit, still, Bodhi assumes, inside Jyn, but close enough now that he can sink into an aggressive kiss with Bodhi. “Guys, fuck,” Jyn breathes, and that encourages them both to keep at it. He imagines he can hear Cassian’s heart thumping _through_ Jyn’s body. 

She squeezes Bodhi’s hand hard enough to leave nail marks when she comes. 

There are only a few minutes spent devoted to catching breath and adjusting position before the hunters switch tactics and turn their attention to Bodhi. “You’re not even fully undressed, Boh,” Jyn tells him. He’s not. He’s still in his boxers -- Jyn had decided to have a seat before he could get to that. 

“M’not.”

“That’s something we can fix, right, Cassian?”

Letting Jyn and Cassian chase their pleasure right on top of him had been a perfect appetizer, but now he can let the selfish rush of excitement flow up and down him, knowing his turn is imminent. He wishes, for one long gleaming moment as Cassian tugs his boxers down past his knees, that he could go back into the past and assure the nervous Bodhi that had been in the Starbucks with Jyn that it was all going to work out just fine. That he’d get so much attention that he wouldn’t even believe he had wished he’d had any. Jyn settles her arms on his chest, smiling her private, clever smile. 

“That’s my Bodhi,” she murmurs, and then Cassian’s mouth is swallowing him up -- he bucks a little bit, has to work to not knock foreheads with Jyn, and she’s shushing him gentle and sweet, as if she’s trying to get to him to sleep instead of offering him a little more lovely torment. “God, you’re cute when you come, did you know that?”

That’s going to happen more quickly than he likes if he doesn’t try and resist, and so Bodhi takes a loud shuddering breath, trying to stay steady. It’s like trying to text while riding a bike, and he’s going to go careening, especially with Cassian’s mouth so--so perfect, and Bodhi’s already been taken to dizzying heights, and now Jyn’s talking again, leaning in. 

“Love watching you while Cassian’s sucking you off,” she lets him know, and then they’re kissing, they both taste so very much like sangria, and she’s digging both her hands in his hair. Cassian, hearing his own name, puts even more effort into breaking Bodhi’s concentration on her, there is no mouth in the world like his, fuck--Cassian had always told him men give better blow jobs than women and he’s not inclined to disagree, not now when Bodhi’s stretching every muscle in his legs as they scramble towards the finish line. 

Jyn pulls away from his mouth so Bodhi is free to let out a strangled moan, an obscene little strand of saliva connecting their mouths. She runs her tongue along the shell of his ear to encourage him. 

“Boh--” Cassian’s calling, clearly feeling the need to redirect his attention -- he’s pulled away so he can talk, leaving Bodhi dangling right on the edge. “Bodhi, gorgeous, finish, let me help you--” The words are clumsily strung together, obviously Cassian’s tongue has been tied by the task at hand. He’s never been quite the level of adventurous that Jyn is, but he’s no prude, either, and his timing is excellent -- his lips touch Bodhi’s cock again at just the moment that Bodhi tenses. Jyn’s laughing lightly, indulgent, as Bodhi pulls himself up into more of a sitting position so he can lock eyes with Cassian at the crucial moment.

“Isn’t he great at that?” Jyn asks.

He is.

Cassian rides it out with him, and finally Bodhi lets himself trust-fall back into the pillows, into Jyn’s lap. They’re all slick with sweat, and the pinky-yellow light of Jyn’s desk lamp gives a pleasantly aesthetic-porn look to the room. She busies herself with pulling Bodhi’s hair back, then reaches across him to grab a hair tie from her side table so she can keep it in place. 

Cassian has always been a champion about swallowing, but now he’s decided that he’s waited the polite amount of time before stealing the mouthwash from Jyn’s ensuite bathroom. “You know I’m staying, right?” he calls.

“I won’t tattle on you.”

“What about you, Bodhi? You need to get down the hall before curfew?”

He shakes his head. “If he gets to stay, so do it.”

“You’re a popular gal, Jyn,” Cassian comments, before pouring back the swig of mouthwash. 

“Bring that out here?” Bodhi asks.

Cassian spits. “You weren’t sucking dick, Boh, and anyway, what do you plan to do with it?”

“I’ll spit it in a cup.”

“Get up,” Jyn commands, wiggling underneath him in an effort to free herself. “Go do it in there.”

There’s something so domestic about this. An unholy mutant of slumber party and wedding night and one night stand and college dorm. Bodhi slips his boxers back on, presses a kiss to both of their foreheads before washing up and lying down, snug and sleepy, without complaint.

* * *

They don’t normally all bed down together. They’ve all got vastly different opinions on what the appropriate number of blankets is, on what temperature the room should be, on how much tossing and turning is acceptable before you just shove the other person away and tell them to sleep on the couch. 

But it does happen, usually after something like this has wrapped up. The three of them hungry for each other, refusing to let the spell break just because they’re worn out and sleepy. Jyn owns the biggest bed, so it makes sense that they’ll congregate here, her willing to sacrifice sprawling space in exchange for nuzzles and kisses and the body heat of those who are utterly devoted to her. Bodhi nods off still lying in the between them, stirring just briefly when Jyn rolls over and turns off the bedside lamp. Cassian won’t fall asleep if there’s even a sliver of light in the room, no matter how tired he is, and he gives an appreciative grunt when the lamp clicks off. That’s the last thing Bodhi hears before he sinks into the bad dream again, god, right when everything was so good, too. 

In this dream, he tastes perfect fear. The feeling of _succeed succeed succeed or everything will go wrong everyone will die all I have to do is this_ \-- but what? What was--? And then, of course, it ends like it always does, in a flash that sends glittering terror through his entire body, so hot he’s choking --

“Boh,” a low voice is saying, and he can’t, right this moment, figure out whose it is, but it’s soft and loving and easy, nearby. He wants to roll towards it, face whoever’s talking him down. Instead he does a 180, flips from his back to his stomach, buries his face in the pillow, and hands press into his back from both sides. 

“Bodhi,” Cassian says, definitely Cassian. “Right here. We’re right here.”

“It happened again,” Bodhi tells the pillow, and the Cassian’s hand moves up into his hair, combing lightly through the strands that have fallen out of the half-assed ponytail Jyn had created for him. A rather needless announcement, Bodhi thinks miserably. It’s not like they can’t tell what happened. 

Jyn heads the other direction, rubbing the small of his back in tight, expert circles -- she’s done this for him before, apparently Cassian does it for her when she has period cramps. Bodhi doesn’t know where his pain is, except in his head. He doesn’t want to say what he’s thinking because maybe Cassian really will be scared or upset on his behalf, but now he’s suddenly wondering --

_You died young last time, Mr. Rook._

The breath of unthinkable explosion, blowing straight into his face.

Too frightening. He forces himself not to focus on it, to focus on the present, not just the present day, his present life, but the precise seconds that they spend comforting him. “I was due for one of these,” he finally says. 

“It happens,” Jyn agrees.

“I’m sorry.”

“Bodhi, hey,” Cassian cuts in. “Have we ever been mad about it?”

“I don’t know--you’ve never seemed mad--”

“We’re not,” Jyn says.

Bodhi laughs weakly, in spite of his anxiety. “You sound like the Shining twins right now. The hivemind.”

“We’re trying to indoctrinate you,” Cassian says, so seriously that Bodhi has to laugh again. “Join us…”

It’s easier now for Bodhi to settle on his back again, their hands adjusting just so. They’re so understanding, their touch so familiar--they just _know_ how to deal with this, they know. Like they’ve always known.

He means to ask Jyn if she thinks they all knew each other back in that past life where they died young, maybe they were all there, and then something awful happened, but then day follows night and they all met back up again, a kind of see-you-later instead of goodbye. But it’s hard to hold those thoughts together, and so easy to fall asleep, held and needed and loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh my GOSH, I cannot express my thanks to everyone who helped me with this story enough! 
> 
> My betas for this story, Alicia Sin Ciudad and ANTchan, were so thorough and had such great suggestions and I was extra-lucky to have them!!
> 
> And my artist, in-a-trance-like-state, is an absolutely wonderful person to be matched with, and I'm so glad we were paired! 
> 
> Happy May the 4th 2018, everyone!


End file.
